


Firebase Giant

by IS0metric



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Mass Effect 3, Mass Effect Multiplayer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:07:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29862690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IS0metric/pseuds/IS0metric
Summary: Firebase Giant is a small Krogan artillery installation which happened to be a pivotal location in Cerberus' excursions against the united forces opposed to the Reaper conquest. The base was home to many clashes between Cerberus troops and various united fireteams, its control switching between parties in each encounter, over and over again. This story is one such encounter, from the perspective of a Cerberus trooper who has watched the organisation he joined out of patriotism and duty slowly slip out of his recognition, but from which he can't escape.





	Firebase Giant

**Author's Note:**

> (This is once again a story written in the golden age of Mass Effect 3's frankly brilliant cooperative multiplayer, which is only now seeing thee light of day because I found it in a Google Doc. If that period of time resonates with you and you spent as much time as I did on Firebase Giant, I hope you enjoy this retelling of a standard extraction from a different perspective. If not, enjoy the ride all the same!)

The headache was coming back. The high-ups swore that it wasn’t the implants, but Ryan knew different. At least sometimes he did. Other times he wasn’t quite so sure, like some kind of mental block kept appearing whenever he thought too much about it. Ryan shook his head – of course it wasn’t the implants. Maybe his helmet was on too tight.   
  
Ryan tugged at the straps under his chin. He looked at his squadmates sitting across from him. They seemed to be suffering in the same way; Hester’s head was lolling about, Ramirez had been staring at the floor since they set off and Ryan could have sworn he’d heard Kudu talking to himself. He didn’t ask though. They never talked to each other anymore. It used to be different: every operation would start with talk in the shuttle about everything and nothing. There would be laughter, jokes and patriotic speeches (Kudu was good at those), rounded off with the captain handing out dossiers and laying out the plan of action.   
  
The captain had been dead for months. The squad was reduced to four men, including Ryan. Four husks of men, who never talked, never laughed, never felt anything anymore. They didn’t get dossiers these days either. They used to have the best intelligence network in the galaxy, and as far as Ryan knew they still did, but he hadn’t seen the spoils since the early days of the war. They never knew what they were facing, and it was always something more terrifying and deadly than the last time. He constantly got the feeling that they were just the pawns, being thrown into battle to mask some larger, grander event. His head pounded.   
  
The soldier next to him jerked. He’d been doing that a lot, and Ryan had stopped being bothered by it. Ryan recognised his armour from the Phoenix Project. He knew a bit about those guys. The jerking was from the stims they were tanked up on before every assignment. The stims were volatile and dangerous, but they were the only things that could get the Dragoons strong enough to carry the layers of armour they wore and still function. Ryan had seen them in action before. He didn’t think he could even lift that armour, let alone wear it, but the Dragoons were some of the fastest foot soldiers the organisation had. They leapt head first into battle, waving those whips and throwing biotics at anything that moved. Ryan admired and pitied them all at once.   
  
One of the Phantoms two seats down started coughing. It was a sickly, guttural cough that rattled and gurgled through her throat. Her whole body was convulsing, and kept going when the coughing subsided. Her companion, another phantom sitting on her left, clutched her arm and started whispering something. The convulsing Phantom nodded and gurgled, her body starting to relax. The pair kept whispering to each other in those rasping, croaky voices. Ryan couldn’t make out a single word. He wasn’t even sure if it was English. He didn’t know anything about the Phantoms, except that they weren’t right in the head and were best left alone.   
  
A red light flashed above the shuttle door – two minutes to touch down. Ryan tried to shake the headache out of his head and checked his weapon. The M-25 Hornet, a powerful burst-fire SMG issued to all Cerberus’ assault troopers. Not as much power as the Harrier that the commanders carried, but lighter and easier to handle. He checked his heatsink and loaded up. He and his companions stood and clutched the handles near the door. A few seconds later he felt the shuttle slow. The door slid open and Ryan leapt out into the open.   
  
Firebase Giant, it was called. That was literally all he knew about the place, except that it was a control centre for an old piece of Krogan heavy artillery. They had been dropped in some kind observation building; there were dated control panels clustered in the centre of the room and large, glassless openings giving a view of the guns themselves. Ryan could hear gunfire from outside, and moved cautiously to the low wall overlooking the west side of the base. He took a peek over the wall to get his bearings: below the observation room was a platform dotted with crates and low barriers. A pair of large ramps connected the upper platform to a lower one on the east side that he couldn't quite see from here. Looking out along past the platform below was a small structure, one side’s interior reduced to debris and the other side stretching out further than he could see. Among the debris, huddled around a lonely computer, stood their enemy.   
  
Ryan only caught a glimpse before dropping back behind the wall, but he saw enough. There was a human, who spotted him and cloaked immediately. She must have been an infiltrator of some kind – Ryan made a mental note to watch for sniper fire. Next to her was a Turian with an assault rifle, likely a Mattock or Harrier, and a shotgun strapped to his back. He had to be a soldier, packing heat like that. Next to him was an Asari, so definitely a biotic, but Ryan couldn’t tell what discipline. The last member of the team was a Geth, the regular size rather than a juggernaut. Ryan was just wondering what its specialty was when it dropped a turret. Could only be a kind of engineer then.   
  
“Get moving!” a Centurion screamed to Ryan and the other assault troopers. They moved quickly, keeping low, towards the ramp down to the main platform. Ryan took cover in the doorway while Ramirez went first down the ramp. He barely made it three steps before a half a dozen slugs ripped through his chest plate. He was dead before he hit the ground. Ryan watched his old friend roll down the ramp without a flicker of emotion… but decided that the Turian's rifle was definitely a Mattock.   
  
The Centurion launched a smoke grenade and followed it down the ramp, shooting all the way. Ryan flicked on his visor and charged after him. The visor was useless – he found himself lost and disorientated. He stumbled off the ramp, its sudden stop catching him by surprise, and staggered towards the nearest barricade. He rolled into cover, bullets clattering into the platform around him. He huddled with his back against the hard metal, checking his weapon again and waiting for the smoke to clear. He damn near had a heart attack when he looked to his left and saw a Cerberus operative crouching next to him – a Nemesis. He wondered if she had even noticed him; she was occupied with reloading her Raptor.   
  
She shot her head up above the barricade for a split second and shot back down again. She muttered to herself and adjusted the scope on her rifle.   
  
“What do you see?” Ryan asked.   
  
“Five,” she barked. “Nine decimal one seven. Three eight degrees. Code loose.”   
  
Ryan blinked. “What?” he blurted.   
  
She didn’t look back at him. “Amend. Nine decimal one six five.”   
  
She popped her head up again. It exploded before Ryan even heard the shot. That was the infiltrator at work, and she had a beast of a weapon. A Widow maybe, or a Black Widow if they were really unlucky. The Nemesis’ headless body slumped against the hard metal floor. Ryan kept hunkered down and looked to see if anyone else had made it to the platform. The Centurion was behind cover with Hester, no sign of Kudu. Just in front of them, two Dragoons from their shuttle were standing behind a crate, screaming at each other. Ryan had seen this before. It had him worried the first time, but now he knew better: they were just discussing their attack. There was something wrong with them, something in their conditioning, which made them communicate like this. Again, Ryan couldn’t even be sure they were speaking English.   
  
They came to an accord and launched out from behind the crate. The Geth fired his pistol, the projectiles bouncing harmlessly of the leading Dragoon’s armour. They returned fire as the Asari stepped forward and launched a biotic attack. The stream of blue energy shot from her outstretched hand and latched itself to the Dragoon. She yanked her arm back and he staggered, almost falling. Before he could recover she threw another blast at him, sending an explosion rippling through the air. The Dragoon’s lifeless body was thrown all the way back to where Ryan was crouching, his armour rent and buckled, crushed completely out of shape. The second Dragoon was knocked back by the blast and dropped to one knee while the Asari’s residual “reave” wrapped around him. The Turian pulled out his shotgun. Ryan watched as the Turian took a second to aim – it was a Crusader, its tight spread probably accurate enough to hit Ryan at this range – and fired two shots into the Dragoon’s chest. He flopped to the ground and didn’t move.   
  
The computer beeped and suddenly the enemy shot away. The Geth darted into the structure and the Asari ran down the ramp to the lower platform alongside him. Ryan had no idea where the infiltrator was, but was more worried about the Turian who was marching down the platform towards them, the muzzle of his Mattock flashing. Ryan poked his gun out of cover and fired blind, hoping to slow his advance while he searched for a way out. Doubling back to the observation room was suicide; the Turian would have a clear shot of his back. He had to break right: either down the ramp to the lower platform or into the sheltered east side of the observation building. He opted for the ramp to the platform, deciding that if it got too hot he could retreat back into the building.   
  
Ryan sprinted from cover, hearing the Mattock pop over and over behind him on his way down. He reached the bottom of the ramp and peeked around. He was already beginning to regret his decision. The Asari had her back to him, and was systematically detonating Cerberus soldiers who were jetting up to the platform. Ryan wondered if he could take her down from behind. He saw the Geth dropping down the ladder in front of her and decided against it. He made a move for the building just as the pair turned around. He hoped that they hadn’t spotted him.    
  
Ryan tried to figure out what to do. They were scattered and lost. Their only hope was to somehow regroup and split up the attackers – managing both was damn near impossible from Ryan’s point of view. He quietly made his way up the ramp to the observation room, where he had been dropped off just minutes ago. As he entered from the east Hester and the Centurion from his shuttle staggered in from the upper platform. Hester was clutching his thigh, and the Centurion’s shields were gone. The Centurion yelled at them to defend the room. Hester and the Centurion took the west side where they had come in and Ryan covered the ramp into the lower structure. He tried to think who was left – he hadn’t seen the two Phantoms since they landed, and there had to be survivors from the other fireteams. He still had no idea where Kudu was.   
  
Ryan was struck by how quiet it was. It was unnerving. There was a low, resounding thunk from across the base. Followed by another. And another. Then an explosion, like a cannon going off. In fact, it was a cannon going off. Ryan knew the sound well, and it flooded him with relief. It was an Atlas. At least one of the fireteams had some heavy machinery left.   
  
They had landed on the north-west corner outside the ruined structure. Ryan couldn’t see them, but could hear the Mattock getting busy and biotics slamming into shields. It would still take them a while to do any real damage, enough time for the Atlas to deal far more. He kept his position, allowing himself a sigh of relief. He had a moment, at least. He rested his back against the wall and slipped down it, breathing heavily. He hated this. He hated all of it. But he had no choice. While there were still enemies of Cerberus alive he would still fight. It was his duty and it was an honour to serve the advancement of humanity and to crush her enemies. God, his head was sore.   
  
He saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He spotted something he hadn’t seen before: a ladder connecting them to the upper platform. The Geth pulled itself up to his level. It saw Hester and the Centurion first, both leaning over the low observatory wall trying to hit the Turian squaring up to the Atlas. The Geth’s omni-tool flashed and electricity arced between the two soldiers. The Geth raised his pistol. With the machine precision that made the Geth so deadly, it fired twice into the Centurion’s chest, adjusted its aim and fired twice at Hester, all in the space of a second. Both men fell, the electrical overload still sending spasms through their bodies.   
  
Ryan felt sick. He wanted to run. His headache was killing him. Of course he couldn’t run, because… no, he couldn’t run. Something was screaming in his head, willing him to drive his shock baton into the Geth’s back. But he couldn’t do that either. He couldn’t move at all – his feet felt like they were glued to the floor and his arms nailed to his sides. Pain was stabbing through his head, every muscle battling conflicting commands. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to focus on anything but the pain.   
  
The Geth didn’t scan the room. It reloaded and sprinted down the ramp to the main platform, most likely to help deal with that Atlas. Ryan felt the pain subsiding. He dropped to his knees and gasped. That had never happened before. It was as if his fight and flight instincts had suffered a huge falling out – the latter fuelled by adrenaline coursing through his body and the former forced upon him by the implants.  _ It’s not the damn implants! _ he thought to himself. He stood up and shook himself out.   
  
Footsteps. On the lower ramp: someone was entering the observation building’s lower level. This time Ryan was determined to do his duty. If he died, so be it. He stood in the control room and raised his weapon, pointing it down into the lower room and preparing himself for whatever might come. It was Kudu.   
  
Ryan’s arms dropped. He watched his hands shaking violently and wondered if he would have even managed to hit an enemy if they had come up the ramp. Kudu had found some company at least: two combat engineers, a Dragoon and a Phantom followed him into the control room. Kudu passed Ryan without a word. He probably didn’t even recognise him. Wordlessly, the motley group of survivors dropped down the ladder onto the main platform. Kudu looked across to where the Atlas had been dropped. “They’re gone!” he hollered back. Ryan could still hear the boom of the Atlas’ gun – they must have drawn the fight to the lower platform.   
  
The engineers busied themselves with setting up a turret. Ryan looked back at the rest of the group: the Dragoon was flicking his hand about in front of his visor, trying to chase off an insect that didn’t exist. The Phantom had her head down and was gurgling quietly. Kudu was silent, and as still as a statue.    
  
The turret was set up right in the middle of the platform. The Cerberus operatives split up and covered the two ramps from the lower platform, Ryan finding himself near the southern one, which he had used to make his escape from the Turian’s advance. There was a huge explosion, which sent a shockwave all the way to where Ryan was taking cover. His heart sank – that wasn’t the Atlas’ canon or even its rockets. That was the Atlas itself being destroyed. And that meant that the enemy would be coming back.   
  
The Turian was first up the north ramp, pulverising the breastplate of the Dragoon who ran to meet him. He trained his weapon on Kudu, who faced him fearlessly, just as the turret began to whirr. The Turian forgot about Kudu and spun around to face the turret but he was too late. The turret pumped a continuous stream of bullets into the Turian’s shields, which gave out before he could find cover. The rounds tore into his armour and he collapsed onto the deck, twitching. Ryan gasped: they’d taken one down.   
  
Kudu took a step towards the Turian to finish him off, but the Asari was on him in a flash. She leapt into the air and flung out her arms, a wave of biotic energy exploding out of her torso. Kudu was flung into the turret, which exploded as the magazine caught. He hit the ground, his neck twisted awkwardly. The Asari crouched over the Turian, activating a medi-gel supply with her omni-tool. She swept her hand over him, trying to revive him. The Turian began to stir. She began to stand up, not seeing the Phantom de-cloak behind her.   
  
The Phantom spun around in front of the Asari and plunged her sword into her belly. It emerged from the Asari’s back, its entire length glistening with violet blood. Her face was a mask of pain and shock as the Phantom slid the sword out of her body, dropping to her knees. The Phantom moved to take off her head, but the Turian was already up on one knee, shotgun drawn. He fired twice, shattering her sword and battering her barriers. The Phantom staggered and tried to raise her hand, her phase disruptor already glowing. The Turian caught her wrist and sent the blast flying wide. His omni-blade flashed from his wrist and he sent it straight through the Phantom’s crippled barriers. The blade pierced her light armour just below the ribs. She screamed as the Turian pulled the blade out and stabbed again. The third blow silenced her and he dropped her wrist, letting the corpse flop to the ground.   
  
Ryan pointed his Hornet at the Turian and fired. He missed, hitting the deck beside him.  _ Well, this is it then, _ he thought, as the Turian raised his Mattock. Ryan stared at the muzzle, waiting for the final shot. But the shot didn’t come from the muzzle. An underbarrel attachment flashed, launching a concussive shot into Ryan’s chest. The explosion sent him sprawling, rolling, crashing into the wall at the far end of the platform. The world was spinning around him. His ears were ringing deafeningly. He saw the Geth charge past, gun blazing, but didn’t hear a thing. He tried to push himself up, his arms shaking alarmingly. He managed to pull a leg up beneath him, and used it to push himself back onto his feet. He wobbled, steadying himself against the wall. Three Centurions ran past, apparently chasing the Geth down. Ryan followed them slowly, each step threatening to topple him.   
  
His sight was returning, just in time for him to see the Turian backing into the northern structure with the Asari draped over his shoulder, taking cover behind the debris. The Geth was covering him, backing into the open. Ryan was confused – why would they congregate there, with little cover and no way out? Why didn’t the Turian take the time to finish him off? He looked out at the skyline, and saw a spec in the distance. It dawned on him. A shuttle. They were gathering for extraction.   
  
Ryan’s first instinct was to just let them go, but something spurred him on. He couldn’t just stand by while they flew away. He shook his head violently to try and get his senses back. As soon as he felt steady enough, he sprinted towards the extraction zone. He rolled into cover and peeked over. He raised his gun and fired at the Geth standing behind a wall just in front of him. The Geth fired back and Ryan dropped down, reloading his Hornet. Cerberus troops were all around him now, barely giving the enemy a chance to recover between barrages. The Turian was firing faster than Ryan thought was possible with a Mattock but Ryan still chanced a few shots at him. Centurions, engineers and Dragoons were falling all around him, but somehow more kept coming. The last drop must have been huge. A mine exploded nearby. A Centurion’s shields popped and sparked. Concussive shots screamed past Ryan’s cover. He kept firing, hunkering down between volleys. The shuttle pulled up alongside the platform. Ryan cursed, ducking down from the bark of the Mattock, but also feeling a wave of relief flood over him – if they were leaving, at least he was going to make it through this.   
  
He felt himself being lifted off the ground. Something pulled him all the way over the barricade and onto his back. The breath left his lungs with the impact of hitting the ground. He was staring up at the Tuchanka sky. A figure was crouched above him, her tactical cloak flickering away. The infiltrator’s arm was raised high above her head, her omni-blade igniting. It came down hard, slicing through layers of armour and clothing.   
  
Ryan watched helplessly as the infiltrator sprinted away and leapt onto the shuttle. He watched the doors slide shut and the engines start to burn. His vision was darkening. Cerberus troops kept firing at the shuttle’s armour, not making a dent. It didn’t matter though. His chest felt cold and his arms were numb. He had dropped his gun and had no idea where it had fallen But none of it mattered anymore. The headache was gone. A little smile crept across his lips as the shuttle pulled away.

The sky was blue. He had spent the fight, all ten minutes or so of it, fearfully scanning the muddy browns and greys of the rusty platform, scoured and battered by the dust of the Krogan homeworld. He hadn't looked up. The sky was blue. A familiar, comforting blue with only a few shadowy wisps of cloud scattered across the expanse. Looking up at the sky, he couldn't feel the pain anymore. He couldn't feel anything.

He sighed and closed his eyes.   



End file.
